Factors of stickiness in transfers of know-how between MNC units

The effective sharing of organizational knowledge is particularly relevant for multinational corporations, where firm-specific tacit knowledge (know-how) is considered a source of competitive advantage for subsidiaries participating in a global strategy. To that end, multinational corporations (MNCs) are asking their IT departments to support both the exploitation of existing knowledge and the unit-to-unit transfer of new know-how derived in units from exploration. Nonetheless, new know-how derived from exploratory research, development and experience in one unit can be difficult to transfer to units that can exploit that know-how to commercial ends. The factors that impede the transfer of new know-how have been conceptualized as “factors of stickiness”. In this paper, we present a theoretical model of organizational factors that can cause (or conversely mitigate) stickiness in the flow of new know-how between MNC units. To test the six hypotheses of the model, we used meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM) of 31 empirical studies, representing 10,432 cases of new know-how transfer between units. The result of MASEM shows that the factors of receiving units’ potential absorptive capacity and transmission channel in form of social capital that is enacted through its three dimensions (i.e., embedded social ties between units, institutional shared vision of units, and interorganizational trust of units) affect recipient subsidiaries’ capability to exploit new know-how in practice (i.e., realized absorptive capacity), thus effectuating its transfer. Based on our findings, we propose research directions within the context of agile information systems development, distributed software projects, and management of information systems functions in MNCs.